Write dumb poems or die

I started to dig my grave today.

I stepped outside my back door

and looked all around

and up and down

and in a flash of morning sunlight

on a curved vane of dulled aluminum

bobbing on the breeze,

it seemed clear to me that the time had finally

come.

I looked reluctantly over the white heads of clover

peeking through the green blades of grass.

I mourned the peonies spent and low on the lawn.

But weeds were thriving.

I bent to pull several handfuls

from around the scrap iron sculpture

near the pea soupy garden pond.

With some slight decorum

I dropped the weeds

onto the yard waste pile yet to break down

behind the garage,

painted finally for what would be the last time

only last summer

by me not yet 59.

The dark, rich compost had been shoveled

and spread

just this very departing spring

in the flower and vegetable beds.

So there was ample room at ground level now

for a substantial hole –

and fitting.

But rocks and tree roots

would make the digging hard.

I looked over by the faded fence

to where a small stone

marked the place where

our first cat had surely

by now been mostly decomposed,

leaving mostly bones.

But with the rhubarb

to one side

and the oak leaf hydrangea on the other –

no room.

My resting head near a perennial, perhaps.

The baptisia rising

from the earth,

spires of false indigo petals -

purple appearing in blue sky light.

Too close to the driveway.

Plodding past, I saw the rain gauge,

nearly full.

Perhaps some bugs had come

to drink and drown.

But now, no longer planning to live forever,

I tilted my head and drank the shot down

and slammed the empty cylinder back.

The inevitable was unavoidable.

My end, no longer inconceivable.

The air was brisk for May -

probably what had begun to make my nose

sniffle.

I hawked and spat.

Death.

Deliberately I turned towards the garage,

my back slowly receding from the rising

sun.

The shovel hung there on two nails

on the inside wall.

But, no!

No, I would not do

what I wanted not.

Let the grave digger

come after me.

I mowed the lawn instead.